Tuesday 24 March 2009

This week, devotions are based on a section of "The Strength of Love" called 'Our God is Able" - by Martin Luther King, Jr.

After writing about the place of a man-centered universe and the advancement of science, King writes:
But alas! something has shaken the faith of those who have made the laboratory "the new cathedral of men's hopes." The instruments which yesterday were worshiped today contain cosmic death, threatening to plunge all of us into the abyss of annihilation. Man is not able to save himself or the world. Unless he is guided by God's spirit, his new-found scientific power will become a devastating Frankenstein monster that will bring to ashes his earthly life.

We must remember that God's spirit is not what we want or what we think will be the best for us. It is the spirit that moved over creation making all thing "good." It is the spirit that honors life without being ruled by self-centered notions of what is right or good. It is the spirit that takes into account what our actions may be doing to the lives of others. What is good for us from our own eyes can be the most destructive ways to live when we line them up with the vision of God's creative spirit. In this way, all of our personal and corporate decisions need to be guided by the spirit of life that is not the spirit of me and my own. God's spirit will consider the care of all and the ways to make the day-to-day parts of our lives be shaped around the peaceable Reign of God - where monsters do not choose to live.

Connection: We all take part in some of the monstrous games of the world. We do so with many different ideas of what is good and what is not good. One of the reason we are told to keep going back to the vision of God Reign within Scripture is that monstrous ideas and actions are often exposed there...so that we can see them in our own lives.

When you rule us, O God, we live as though the monsters of the world really do try to own us and use us. It is by living within your Reign - even now - that we can face all the trials that will try to devour us. Continue to revive us by your spirit of life. Amen.